The onset of data-driven mental archeology
Nov 10, 2014
Sidarta Ribeiro
How did human consciousness arise, in comparison with that of apes? This question has motivated many hypotheses, from psychoanalysis (Freud, 1939) and literature (Bloom, 1999) to evolutionary psychology (Dennett, 1997; Tomasello, 2014). One of the most provocative is that of Julian Jaynes (1976), who understood the question as pertaining to the cultural evolution of introspection during the first millennium BC, known as Axial Age (Jaspers, 1953). Based on ancient texts, Jaynes postulated that our current awareness began with memories of commands uttered by clan chiefs, which allowed for sustained work throughout the day even in the chief's absence. When chiefs died the memories of their voices reverberated in the remaining subjects, and this occurred more strongly in dreams than in waking, due to the absence of sensory interference. Humans evolved a bicameral mind in which part of the activity dealt with the present to perform actions, while the other part dealt with past and future to produce auditory hallucinations perceived as external commands.
The whole paper is available here.
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